Preventing splits
Splitting / forming new alters / personality parts in dissociative identity disorder and OSDD-1a/1b initially serves an adaptive function – their presence helps you survive in difficult circumstances. But over time, when you no longer need to suffer through traumatic situations, this mechanism may become maladaptive. Splits may no longer help in anything and perpetually rising member count may be distressing for those aiming for final fusion, because it steers them away from reaching their treatment goal, and for those choosing functional multiplicity as well – it's usually harder to manage a bigger system and with every new headmate everyone gets less and less fronting time. There are no methods that will guarantee completely preventing all splitting, but there are some ways in which you may significantly lessen their frequency, reducing at least some of the suffering tied to dissociative identity disorder.
Limiting stress
Splits in dissociative identity disorder are often caused by trauma, and when your splitting treshold becomes low enough, also by triggering, stressful or even simply uncomfortable situations. It's not always possible to avoid such situations, but if you manage to remove yourselves from at least some of them, it may be the simplest way for preventing many splits. Examples include changing school or work, ending toxic relationships or stopping watching triggering content. Also it may be counterintuitive, but accepting frequency of your splits may help limit them – when you are distressed by them and try to prevent them at all costs, ironically your stress may cause more alters to form.
Healthy coping mechanisms
Splitting is foremost a coping mechanism, even if currently a maladaptive one. You can't just eliminate it without giving yourselves another way to cope with stress. When you find yourselves in circumstances that usually end up in a split, try using a chosen healthy coping mechanism instead. It may be for example grounding, taking care of the body's needs, talking with loved ones, journaling, cerating art, meditation, yoga or sport. This will allow you to proccess difficult emotions in another way and creating a new alter for this purpose may be no longer necessary.
Negotiating with the subconscious
In some cases, like when you introject all of your favorite characters, you may want to welcome new people into the system, even though you know it harms you all in the long run (for example you feel great when you can talk to them, but they quickly end up with an existential crisis after being forcibly removed from their universe). Or you know that splitting stopped helping long ago, but subconsciously you still hope that this time it will work, since it worked before. In such cases you may try negotiating with your subconscious or with yourself (we mean this more metaphorically, but for some literally asking their subconsciousness to stop creating new headmates may work as well). When you feel upcoming introjection or formation, keep reminding yourself: “maybe it's what I want, but it's not what we all need” or “I know it worked before, but it doesn't help anymore”.
It may be a also good idea to look into the needs that these splits unsuccessfuly aim to fulfill – if you persistently introject characters that you see for example as perfect to befriend or date, it may be a sign of loneliness and it's recommended to start searching for satisfying external relationships, if internal ones are not enough. Also if you often get new headmates for fulfilling the same role, like caregiver or a mask, ask yourselves: what causes the contribution of previous headmates to always not be enough? Maybe they need to read more guides on rising children, especially traumatised children, so they may better care for the needs of your littles (and others). Or find healthy coping mechanisms that will protect them from burning out. But maybe they are doing really well, but you have unrealistic expectations towards them. Maybe you wish for a perfect parent, who will never get annoyed or tired. Or you hope that eventually you will be able to create a part that will not experience any of your autism symptoms and will finally give you opportunity to be seen as “normal” and be accepted. Then you have work through these expectations and when feeling an upcoming split, remind yourselves that you already have a headmate that fufills this role and is as good at it as it's possible to achieve.
Self-hypnosis
Causes of splitting are complex and often their appearance has nothing to do with your feelings on the matter. But sometimes your expectations do influence your internal functioning. Some splits can be prevented by simply believing that they won't happen. Here self-hypnosis may prove helpful. You may simply take a moment to focus on your mind and repeat to yourselves, trying to convince yourselves that you won't split in this situation (or generally). If you have some place in the innerworld where headmates appear, for example a door or gates from another reality, it may be really helpful. You may try to close such gate and this should be enough. If you don't have such thing in the innerworld, you may visualise how creation of new alters looks like for you – for example coming through the gates from another world like mentioned above, or gradually forming from life energy that floats in the air, or being printer on a 3D printer, whatever works best for you. Then you may visualise stopping this proccess – closing the gates, dissipating life energy or pulling the plug of the printer.
Created: 05.12.2024
Translated: 14.08.2025